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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C S Lewis

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Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Reflections of Evil

I apologise for using Google Docs to make the quiz, which meant that your results couldn't be displayed on the blog page, and also meant that everyone could see your results on the spreadsheet. I had tried a number of free quiz-making web sites first, but they either didn't work particularly well for me or (despite being touted as "free") they required some kind of payment to use some or all of the features. So I opted to use Google Docs, which is now called Google Drive apparently.

I'm not going to go through all of the questions and answers, but I did want to cover the first question in a little detail because I learnt something from all of you by your answers to it. The first question was:

1. The Root of All Evil is
*

Andrew Lansley

Simon Chapman

The World Health Organisation (WHO)

Stephen Williams MP

Dr Anna Gilmore

The correct answer for this question was "Simon Chapman," which is how I refer to him on this blog. But as you can see from the following graph, the majority of you answered "The World Health Organisation (WHO)".

Upon much consideration and deep reflection, I would think those of you who answered this question with the WHO as the Root of All Evil are also correct. Perhaps I should have phrased the question a little differently to make it clear that I meant "who gets called the Root of All Evil on this blog." But I think many of you answered with your opinion as to who or what the Root of All Evil was, and I really cannot argue that you're wrong. The WHO, in my mind, is the Source of All Evil, much like the dark side of the Force. The WHO's tentacles slither and spread out into the world, corrupting all of those it touches if people let it. So it's a minor semantic difference. Root. Source. They mean more or less the same thing.

Going back to the Star Wars analogy, in my opinion the WHO is more like the intangible dark side of the Force, whereas Simon Chapman is more like Emperor Palpatine, the master of the Force's dark side, a master of evil.

In the films and the Expanded Universe, Palpatine is portrayed as
cunning and deceptive in manipulating people and events to achieve his
goals. [...] Palpatine presents himself in public to others as a modest, polite, and harmless person. However behind this public persona, in reality he is a ruthless megalomaniac.

That does sound just like the Root of All Evil to me. What do you think?

Anyway, fellow rebels, the results of the anti-smoker quiz will remain available indefinitely here. If you answered question one with The WHO being the Root of All Evil, consider your answer to be correct as well.